Anca Damian about MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE: “My film is a like a sausage”
In her final moments, the adorable street dog Marona reflects upon her life. On the cute puppy she once was and on all the people she loved unconditionally: an acrobat, a construction worker, and a little girl who promised to always be there for her.
Film screening during the 61st ZLÍN FILM FESTIVAL:
THU | 09.09 | 13:00 | GOLDEN APPLE CINEMA, projection hall 2
Details of the projection can be found here.
Rarely a film, not even an animated feature, dazzles as much with colours and movement and artistic exuberance as MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE does. The swirling animation – sometimes dreamy and sparkling, sometimes dark as a nightmare – makes MARONA’s graphic universe a stunning beauty. Which was one of the reasons why this French-Romanian co-production by Anca Damian recently won the ECFA Award, a price for the “Best Children’s Film of the Year”.
MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE seldom misses its effect. In a sense that you’ll often find yourself surrounded by the sounds of sobbing and sniffing. Do you never feel a tiny-little-bit guilty about all those tears being shed?
Anca Damian: Not at all! I think that the emotion stays with us longer, and so the film’s message can be cathartic. The more people tell me how heartbroken they were, the happier I am. It is not all about crying, because everybody is laughing as well. After every dramatic scene, I cut to a funny one. Life is a paradox; it is never black or white. Each joy inherently contains the sadness about the moment not lasting forever.
How did dogs get into your life?
Damian: For his 16th birthday, my son got offered a dog for a present. I begged him not to accept it – “Knowing myself, I will forever be the slave of that dog. Soon I’ll be sitting on the floor while offering him my place on the couch.” My son told me: if you don’t let me keep the dog, I will move out. So we kept the dog… and then he moved out and left me with it – a classic story. What I specifically like about dogs is that even when they grow old, they still have the soul of a child, they still want to play. My dog is more than 11 years old and after every long walk, I can feel the pain in his old bones. But still he feels this urge to run and play, like a baby that never grows up.
Marona’s character is somehow based upon a real dog?
Damian: One day when I was out walking, a stray dog followed me. This dog had something so pure and I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving it out there on the streets. I tried to find a foster family for it, and every time that dog changed the dynamics within those families, its presence had an impact on the internal relationships. I realized that through this dog I could tell a story about how people relate to each other. It got the name Marona, meaning “brown” in Romanian. We decided to change its looks in the film, but kept the same name, as a tribute.
There are so many different dog breeds. Marona is not a Labrador, nor a Chihuahua or a Pitbull. Why does she look the way she does?
Damian: Character designer Brecht Evens from the beginning decided Marona’s colours should be black and white, having all other colours reflected upon her. Her heart-shaped nose, socks and ears that look like wings lend her an identity of her own.
Combining different graphic styles, with every style you create a new atmosphere, a new universe. And still through all those various styles, you succeed in presenting the film as one ‘unity’.
Damian: My method is to transmit the story into a concept, that is at the bases of every decision I make. People sometimes ask me: can you develop a concept for my project? Of course, I can, but you won’t be able to implement it. You can’t follow the concept, because every day you have to make small decisions according to it, and you will not know if it doesn’t live and breathe inside you. Even if people steal my script, they wouldn’t be able to make my movie. My entire film is “a sausage” – with the length in minutes of the final film – that I’m keeping in mind, holding it together, stuffing it with different ingredients. A vegetarian promoting sausages… that sounds weird.
This doesn’t leave much freedom to the animators.
Damian: I’m in control of everything, but at the same time I want to engage them in the moviemaking process. Every animator has his own character to work on – they are not animating scenes, but they are animating one character throughout every scene. I speak with the animators and give them references and after a few months all the hard work pays off, as they now know their characters inside out and come up with suggestions and ideas. Even their mistakes can contribute to the final result.
Asking kids for a first impression, they usually say: I’ve never seen a film like this before.
Damian: That is a pity for the film industry. How can kids ask for something that they don’t know exists? Of course, the film in the first place should be entertaining, but what more do we want? There are so many topics that we can address. MARONA tells about happiness. What is the happiness we are pursuing all our lives? For this film death is a starting point, but it is a story about life. Romania has no tradition, not even a school for animation. Nothing obstructed me in developing my own language in complete freedom, without any preoccupations or prejudices.
I haven’t seen many films before speaking that same language. I can only think of the Brazilian animation THE BOY AND THE WORLD (O MENINO E O MUNDO, by Alê Abreu).
Damian: Exactly. In my director’s intent I wrote: “I see this film like THE GIRL AND THE WORLD.” That was my reference. While the boy discovers the world by searching for his father, my story is about a girl discovering the world by emotionally relating to it.
The film puts a certain spotlight on the relationship between humans and animals.
Damian: I believe we are not the only creatures in this universe, and still we claim all the rights, even the right to kill. There is no respect for other creatures around us. We are not properly using the gift that we were given, and soon it will be payback time.
Marona travels from one owner to another. There’s an acrobat, a worker, a little girl... Why did you specifically pick these people?
Damian: Manole the acrobat responds to the childhood years, when everything was possible. Istvan the worker who is emotionally blocked, responds to the teenage years. Solange’s storyline is about accepting people for who they are. No one is 100% good or bad, Solange saves Marona, but she also sets her on her way to a tragic ending. There is yet another layer to the film: Manole’s episode looks as if it is set in the fifties, Istvan’s episode depicts the eighties’ consumerism, and Solange is situated in the present. This is like a journey through time, while seeing yourself reflected in a dog.
Thanks to our Belgian co-worker Gert Hermans for the interview.